Letters, Feb. 12, 1934

Peanut Publicity

Sirs: . . . Anent the story of the Washington peanut vendor, it is the perfect publicity story. If said story was saved during election campaign, it could net candidate using it 100,000 votes throughout the country. The story is the acme of a pressagent's glorious triumph—pathos, human interest, and the milk of human kindness— also BUNK. The story was obviously concocted to entrench more solidly the President with the ''masses," and of course it brought countless remarks from the gullible as to the kindness of the understanding pilot of the great ship of state. Would TIME report the natural sequel to this story—if it proves a boomerang—and what was done to the other hundreds of peanut vendors that took the executive order literally—and moved their stands to the vicinity of the Vasila- kos stand? . . .

R. C. BENWAY Toledo, Ohio

Up to last week no other peanut vendor had been alert or bold enough to poach the territory of "Steve" Vasilakos,. who gratefully donated one day's receipts ($9.45) to the President's Warm Springs Fund.—ED.

Sirs:

Nicholas Stephanos Vasilakos echoes with more than sentiment to some persons. It echoes with romance to me and many others who have bought the wares of this peanut and pop corn vendor. Across "the Avenue" "David Belasco's" theatre rests. Many a romantic couple have before or after the show bought of the man on Pennsylvania & East Executive Avenues. More romantic, however, have been the purchases of this man in the form of peanuts to be fed to squirrels and pigeons across the way, as cater-cornered to N. S. V.'s stand is a small park where many Washingtonites go during the sweltering days to court sweethearts, take wives and sisters, and feed squirrels and pigeons.

HAROLD J. RUTTENBERG Pittsburgh, Pa.

"By God, Sirs . . ."

Sirs:

This, to tender a long-due congratulation on your book reviews. Particularly do I wish to praise your Jan. 29 review of Ulysses. Intelligent, comprehensive, pointed, the reviewer smacks the head of the nail every time.

By God, Sirs, you have done an excellent job. I couldn't do better myself.

J. W. PRINCELL Minneapolis, Minn.

Sirs:

The review of Ulysses is a fine piece of work. I thank you for it. There is a comment that should be made on a line or two of it. Your last column on p. 49 tells us that those who learn life from books will find Ulysses preeminently valuable.

Who is it that lives like Bloom and his set? At present I know the inside of about five hundred homes. I have known a couple of thousand more scattered up and down the social gamut. I believe it is fair to say that about two in a hundred are somewhat like that of Bloom and the others. Perhaps it would be better to say that the Blooms are an exaggerated example of a couple of homes in a hundred.

Perhaps the Bloom type are found only in cities of a certain type. What type can it be? I was raised in a very large one and knew of few Blooms. At that rate, the denizens of Joyce's pages are not going to teach us life. . . .